


The Wolf Is Running

by bananasandroses (achuislemochroi)



Series: Whofic [75]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 4X11 (Turn Left), Bad Wolf, F/M, Tenth Doctor Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 17:33:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9775850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/achuislemochroi/pseuds/bananasandroses
Summary: It has been a literal lifetime since you last heard that name.





	

The drip feed of information is infuriating. But Donna said something about it being like waking from a dream and trying to chase down the detail before the last fragments of it disappear from her mind, and you know you have to be gentle. You need to take your time; you should realise, as a Time Lord, how important that is. But knowing does nothing to curb your impatience.

‘Tell me, Donna; what did she say?’

Donna’s already mentioned how this mystery woman she can’t shut up about was blonde, and you have to tamp down the wild, irrational hope she could be talking about Rose. Not that you’ve ever been rational about Rose, anyway, not even at the beginning, and you became worse at hiding it the longer you knew her. The last time you saw her you told her it was impossible, but if this woman is who you think it might be, then...

‘Just two words.’

Hope mushrooms inside you, building and building to almost unbearable levels, and waiting for Donna to spit the words out is driving you wild with impatience. And just when you think you can’t wait any longer, Donna speaks, in a dazed tone of voice bordering on wonder, words you have heard before, a literal lifetime ago:

‘Bad Wolf.’

It’s been years beyond number since you last saw the woman who holds that title, but time has done nothing to dilute the potency of these words. The longing to see Rose flashes over you, hurting beyond the telling (as it always does).

Donna doesn’t understand the meaning those words hold for you, or realise who the person is that spoke them to her – and you’re right, it is her, it is Rose, and you marvel at how Donna was given the chance to see your girl – and how could she? But you know. You _know_ , and it’s terrifying, exhilarating, appalling, and _fantastic_ all at once.

You can’t stand still, so you run outside; if you doubted Donna before you do so, you don’t afterwards. Not with the words _Bad Wolf_ daubed on every visible surface, your TARDIS included. In your last incarnation, you and Rose found those two words following you everywhere; you don’t recall the same thing happening this time around, but then you suppose nothing happens in the same way twice.

You run back into the TARDIS, still buoyed in a bubble of happiness, only for much of the effervescence to desert you when you notice – and this is something even you can’t ignore – your TARDIS is shrouded in blood-red light. You’re reminded of the Year That Never Was, the Master, and the Paradox Machine; it took a long time to set things to rights once that was over, and you _really_ don’t relish the prospect of doing it again. Still, that’s the least of your troubles with the whole Universe now in peril.

But you’ve known things were going pear-shaped from the second Donna spoke those words.

_The wolf is running!_

The Bad Wolf is in the wild and on the hunt. And as she is by some distance the most powerful creature in all creation, that only ever means one thing:

Trouble.


End file.
